


Both.

by iridescentmusings



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-11 23:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 12,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5644957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentmusings/pseuds/iridescentmusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I’d be sad if, if you died. Then I just, I’d feel so awkward for the rest of the time. Might as well kill us both!</p>
<p>------</p>
<p>Call me a desperate romantic, but I don’t think I could live without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1.

1.

 

I can’t remember the exact date, which is annoying as that moment is a landmark for me of quite some significance, but I know that one day I realised that I’d fallen for him. Him and all that came with him, that which some would call baggage but I just saw as parts of him that I wouldn’t change for anything, not if all of the world were screaming at me to do so. Not even if it would save humanity as a whole, for life would be meaningless if he wasn’t the person he is, the person he will become, with no malevolent interference. I sound incredibly poetic, or at least as if I’m attempting to be. I’m not, though I don’t expect anyone to believe that I’m actually this sappy when it comes to him. I am, though I don’t expect anyone to understand.

 

He knows many people- as do I, but nobody is known by us or knows of us in the way that we understand one another. I’m able to judge the direction his mood is taking from something as small as a twitch in his eye or his fingers drumming on a countertop, and he the same with I. We know each other in ways more intimate than the most carnal of acts, and are so in tune with each other's emotions that he can calm me during a panic attack, and I can rile him up to breaking point when we make each other mad. Like all friendships, we have our ups and our downs, our highs and our lows; frequently, even. The difference between us and the rest of the world, however, is the underlying certainty that can be felt at all times, a knowledge set in stone that we’ll always return to being okay. There’s something uniquely special about that, in my opinion.

 

It’s probable that many think that they feel the emotions that I feel, that they know someone the way I know him. Yet we’re beyond that, the two of us. The world avidly observes our every movement -that which we have chosen to share, and sometimes that which we have not-, interpreting each action in a multitude of complex ways. Mostly, they make things bigger than they really are; a mountain from a molehill, a vow of love from a mere glance. Sometimes, however, our viewers fall short, downsizing the mountain to a fraction of its size; not realising what’s before them.

 

I, too, fail to notice the obvious sometimes. Nonobservance leads to mistakes, and mistakes can lead to tragedy. Life has taught me that well enough, a series of lessons culminating in where I am today.  _ Here.  _ And there’s nothing whatsoever that I can do about it, except hope for the best- hope for a miracle. 

 

No matter how much we plead for benevolence, nothing can save me, so I can’t save him. Not that I won’t die trying. But miracles don’t occur in the lives of the damned.

  
  



	2. 2.

2.

 

I can’t find a light switch in here, in the room where the faceless people threw us. I’ve no idea how much time has passed; how long can we have been in this place, in the damp and the dark and the cold? Phil -I can tell it’s still him even with the absence of light to determine his features- is still knocked out cold.  At least he’s breathing, giving me some small sliver of hope for him. 

 

He was making too much noise when they took us; as they hadn’t tied his hands yet, as they had already done with mine, he ripped the cloth gag from his mouth and screamed. Maybe it was worth it, I don’t know, but I’m not sure what could possibly be worthy of having Phil, poor sweet innocent Phil, clubbed around the skull with an iron bar. I rested his bleeding head in my lap during the journey here, as best as I could without the use of my hands. All I can do now is wish, pray, even, for him to wake up.

 

\------------------

 

Many hours later, a narrow flap in the door which I’ve failed to notice until now crashes open. From the dimly lit outside, a plate of bread is pushed roughly into the room, followed shortly by a bottle of water. Before I can utter a single word, though I’ve not idea what I would say, the flap is shut and the small amount of light extinguished by the action.

 

Upon inspection with the tips of my fingers, hands still trembling uncontrollably and tied behind my back, the bread is hard and stale, the bottle of water has a broken seal, and I trust neither of them. Consequently, I do not eat, I do not drink, choosing to instead work on the knots of the rope tying my wrists together.

 

\----------------

 

Hours pass once more, and in between the food arriving and now, I have managed to free my hands. I’m attempting to untie Phil when he finally wakes up. From his sudden intake of breath, I can tell that he’s planning to scream again, and maybe taking out the gag before he woke up was a bad idea, and I find myself clapping a hand over his mouth instinctively. He’s scared, I can tell, so I whisper, my words a mere ghosting of breath, “It’s me, Phil. Please don’t scream because it could make this situation even worse than it already is. 

 

“Dan?” he queries as soon as I move my palm away from his lips, him seeking clarification already given to fortify his knowledge.

 

“Yes,” I confirm, pushing his fringe back from his forehead. His hair is matted with sweat and blood, something which would probably have me reeling away in disgust were it anyone but him. “How’s your head?”

 

“Where are we?” he asks me in lieu of an answer, probably responding to my question with another because his head is extremely painful and he doesn’t want me to worry over it. 

 

I’m not fooled, but reply still. “I have no idea,” I say, shrugging automatically despite the darkness. “All I know is that we’re a long  _ long  _ way from home, and we need to get out of her.”

 

“How?”

 

“I’ll find a way.”

 

“Promise?” he asks, and my breath catches tellingly in my throat. I can’t bring myself to lie to him, so I say nothing at all. My silence is most likely more telling than words could ever be.

  
  



	3. 3.

3.

 

It feels as if we’ve been here for numerous years, although I rather expect that anyone stuck in such a confined space for as long as we have would be saying the exact same thing by now. The dull ache in my bladder ascertains that it has been quite a while since I’ve had access to a toilet. I hate everything about this situation, and my extreme urge to piss is only adding to my ire. Running on the theme of being deprived of basic human needs, I haven’t eaten or had anything to drink while here. Suspicion is a logical result of being kidnapped, so naturally I  _ still  _ haven’t sampled the stale bread or murky water.

 

Next to me, a relative term as he’s actually half draped across my legs, Phil wakes up from a deep sleep brought about by exhaustion. I fell prey to such a slumber not long ago, kicking myself internally for being weak enough to drop off in the jaws of the enemy, wherever said jaws are situated. I’m just about to say something in acknowledgement of Phil’s rising, but something stops me. Voices. I can hear people talking outside the door. Normally whoever brings us bread and water -I say ‘normally’ though it’s only happened three times thus far, this included- doesn’t speak. But there are two voices this time, both male and with non-committal kinds of accents.

 

“Everything’s ready, then?” one enquires, and I christen him Gruff due to his deep gravelly voice.

 

“All but them,” the other confirms. I imagine that he’s gesturing to our door. He’s one of those unfortunate men whose voices stay high-pitched even after it breaks. He’ll be called Squeaky, then.

 

A brief silence follows, then there’s the sound of a key fumbling into the lock of our door.

 

“Dan!” Phil exclaims in a shocked whisper.

 

“They don’t know that we’re untied,” I point out, even more quiet than him. “Stand up and get ready to push past them.”

 

We stand quickly, both of us having to stoop so that our heads don’t collide painfully with the ceiling. There’s so little space that I can feel Phil’s side pressed against mine. He’s trembling, and I imagine that I must be, too.

 

The door swings open. I start forwards but find myself held at gunpoint, so obviously step back. The weapon is held by a massive man, large in size due to muscle rather than fat, who I correctly think to be Gruff. My assumptions are confirmed when he speaks.

 

“Right, you two. We’re going on a little walk, during which you’re not going to make a sound. First, however, I’m taking you to the loos because I don’t need you pissing in Sir’s car,” Gruff tells us as Squeaky nods affirmatively several times beside him. 

 

\----------------

 

Five minutes later, my bladder no longer fit to burst, Phil and I are in the back of a car. A length of rope is tying our necks to the metal holding up the headrests in addition to our re-tied hands and feet. If only the windows weren’t so heavily tinted, then we’d be seen by someone and an alarm would be raised. The pressure on my throat isn’t actually choking me, but it definitely feels that way. Claustrophobia is closing in on my mind like a fog of pure, undiluted panic. 

 

My eyes dart wildly around the limited surroundings, only halting when I meet Phil’s gaze. Our mouths stuffed with foul-tasting cloth again, he can’t mouth ‘calm down’ as I imagine he would. I can feel the same message coming across, however, so I try my best. That proves hard, though, when the car stops, both of our doors open and a needle is pushed through the soft skin of my neck.

 

Darkness follows.

  
  



	4. 4.

4.

 

The first thing I notice when I ease into consciousness, other than the fact that I haven’t been jolted awake, as has been the norm recently, is white. I’m surrounded entirely by the colour, absolutely everywhere. White walls, white ceiling, white floor. White bed, white restraints around my limbs, white clothes that I seem to have been changed into. White beard, white hair, skin so pale it could almost be the same shade as his surroundings. By ‘his’, and therefore ‘him’, I mean the old man on the bed next to mine.

 

Phil is nowhere to be seen. 

 

I force calm upon myself, pumping the emotion around my body with determination. If I allow myself to lose control and freak out about the absence of my best friend, the man I love, then I’ll have no chance whatsoever of actually helping. “Hello?” I call out tentatively in the general direction of the man strapped to a bed identical to mine. He stirs, blinking his way into a state of awareness.

 

“Hello?” he responds, craning his neck to look over at me. Something cracks loudly, and we both wince at the sound, him probably due to the sensation as well. “Where are we?”

 

“I’ve no idea,” I reply apologetically. “I’m just as much in the know as you are, which is to say not at all. I’m Dan, by the way. Dan Howell.”

 

“Ray Jones,” he reciprocates. “Were you kidnapped as well then, I’m assuming?”

 

“Yes, around three days ago, give or take,” I twist my body, or at least try to. I can’t even manage to look directly forward, just from side to side. “My best friend was taken at the same time.”

 

“I was alone, which I guess is a good thing. I was just outside my car in a Sainsbury’s carpark, would you believe? Broad daylight and these people got away with just nabbing me.”

 

“We -Phil and I, that is- were taken right before we got into our car as well. It was a rental because we were planning on driving over to his parent’s place rather than taking a bus or train. Guess that plan’s screwed.”

 

“Guess so,” Ray confirms with a dry, humourless laugh. “I wonder what they’re going to do, whoever has us here. If your friend Phil is here as well, we can maybe assume that there are others as well. Perhaps they’re going to experiment on us.”

 

“Always one to look on the bright side of life, I see,” I comment sardonically. “The glass is never anything less than full when Ray’s in the house.

“I’m just a hopeless optimist, what can I say?” he jokes back, and though our banter is lightening the tense atmosphere slightly, when he says ‘hopeless optimist’, all I can think of is Phil, Phil, Phil, and how I would rather die than have anything happen to him. 

 

Footsteps. I can suddenly hear them -faint and evidently far away-, but as soon as I notice them I cant help but tune every fibre of my being into listening to them approach. 

 

Louder, louder, stop.

 

The sound of a key in a lock, fingers turning a door handle. They’re in the room, but I can’t see them because I can only see side to side and they’re most definitely standing right in front of me.

 

“I’m going to loosen your bonds so that you can get up, both of you,” a woman’s voice informs the two of us. “However, if you attempt to escape when I do so, you  _ will  _ be shot at once. No exceptions. Do I make myself clear?”

 

“Yes,” I mumble, and Ray echoes me in a deeper voice.

 

“Well then,” she continues. “Let’s get this party started.”

 

My feet are freed first, then my legs as a whole, followed by my arms. After that, only my wrists are left shackled to the bed. With a key pulled from a pocket in her skirt, she removes the handcuffs. I sit up, rolling my shoulders and stretching, all while not-so-subtly observing my surroundings fully for the first time. 

 

The front of the room, which is the area I was unable to see, is entirely transparent, made of something which cannot be glass because that would be too easy to smash. Even the door is made of the same stuff. Looking further, I see that we seem to be in a corridor of rooms similar/identical to ours. Across from us, two figures are being freed from their beds. 

 

What is this? We’ve been separated into pairs, so it seems, and there could be a great deal more. 

 

“Announcements will commence in one minute,” she informs us after checking a Rolex watch on her slender wrist. She turns to leave, but then halts. “Oh, silly me! I nearly forgot these!” she pulls two pens and small notebooks from her bag. “You’ll want to take notes.”

 

“What announcements?” Ray questions her as she opens the door and steps out into the hallway. “What is this? Who are you?”

 

She laughs as she walks away; I’m tempted to spitefully flip her the bird, but remember the threat of being shot and decide against it.

 

“Now we wait, then,” I sigh, stating the obvious for want of anything better to say.

 

“Not for very much longer,” Ray points out. “She said that-”

 

**“Welcome to my humble abode, Ladies and Gentlemen,”** a voice booms from speakers that I didn’t realise were here.  **“You’ve now reached the preparatory stage of this process.”**

Ray and I look at each other in confusion, but both of us click our pens and prepare to start making notes. This will probably turn out to be a life or death situation, the threat of being shot only indicative of what’s to come. 

 

**“Now comes the point where I explain what is going to happen, and probably where you start screaming and trying to escape.”** That can’t be good.  **“On your right wrists, I’d like you to look at the watch that has been placed there. Do not try and remove it, or there will be dire consequences.”** Okay, this is definitely as far from good as it’s possible to be.  **“These are in fact not watches; they’re countdown timers. Currently, they’re all set to twenty-four hours, and have yet to start. I wonder if any of you can guess what they’re counting down to?”**

 

“Our deaths, I assume,” I tell Ray. “It only makes sense.”

 

**“Well done Mr Howell!”** the voice congratulates me, confirming my belief that there must be some kind of monitoring equipment in here with us.  **“For those of you not in room eight, Daniel Howell just guessed correctly- these timers are soon going to be ticking away to the tune of your upcoming death. If the timer reaches zero, the wristband of the timer will inject you with a fast-acting poison.”**

 

My heart drops to my stomach, then continues to freefall to the tips of my toes. Phil could die. Philip Lester could very well be killed in the next twenty-four hours and I just can’t let that happen.

 

**“However, there is a way that you can save yourself. You have been issued with a list of fifty objects, which you need to find with your partner. The list is under the bed, and your partner, by the way, is the person with whom you’re currently roomed.”**

 

I scramble to retrieve the list of objects from beneath the bed. Before I can give myself a chance to read it through, the voice on the speakers return.

 

**“Each object has a number next to it. This number represents the number of minutes that will be added to your timer. I’ll take care of adding the time- there are cameras at every turn which will show my team and I when you reach an object. Once the object has been found, its time may not be used again. When found, it will be announced over the speakers.”**

 

Both Ray and I are frantically writing this all down.

 

**“Regrettably, for you at least, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to buy yourself enough time to survive this game with just finding the things on the list. So, there’s one more option.**

 

**You can gain time by taking it from others. If you kill another player, the minutes left on their timer will be added to yours. But don’t think you can make some quick time by killing your partner- if they die, you lose five hours, even if it isn’t by your hand. I’ve made the teams an equal mix of mental and athletic abilities, old with young, smart with not.**

 

**You will have an hour to acquaint yourself with your partner before you are released into the game area. It’s equal in size to a reasonably populated village, and you will all be entering it from a different doorway. Do not think about escaping- this has been planned for over a decade, and everything is engineered so that you will have no chance at getting out of here. Once they shut behind you, the doors will be switched on to an electrical network which will kill if touched.”**

 

A pause follows, then a low chuckle crackles through the speaker.

 

**“Any questions before we start the hour’s countdown?”**

 

I speak up at once. “Do we need to kill people to survive- is it an absolute necessity?”

 

**“Mr Howell again. In answer to your question, no. You don’t** **_need_ ** **to kill anyone- this is not a silly game in which only one can survive. However, if your countdown nears zero, you may well find yourself resorting to murder. Once all objects have been found, as the list is of fifty objects in total for you all, the game finishes and your timers will freeze. Any more questions?”**

 

We -Ray and I- wait in anticipation of someone else asking something,  _ anything.  _ It appears that someone has.

 

**“Mr Lester,”** they acknowledge.  _ Phil _ , he’s definitely still alive!  **“Yes, you can join with other pairs, but I would be careful with whom you form a group with, as anyone not in your pair will have something to gain by killing you,”** That’s a very good point, actually, I note. “ **In the interest of forming groups, I will have my assistant call out the list of pairs. Pens at the ready in case you know anyone, ladies and gents.”**

 

There’s the sound of the man moving out of the way, and then someone sitting in his place. When they start to speak, I recognise them as that woman from earlier.

 

**“Your pairs are numbered in reverse alphabetical order, with the surname in the pair highest in the alphabet counting most. Your number corresponds with one of ten doors which lead into the game area.**

 

**1: Martin Yale & Philip Lester**

**2: Amelie Woods & Lillian Peters**

**3: Perianne Underwood & Samuel Jordan**

**4: Maria Quentin & Emil Andrews.**

**5: Daya Moore & Tisha Drew**

**6: Queenie Jordan & William Fischer**

**7: Helga King & Irma Carmichael**

**8: Ray Jones & Daniel Howell**

**9: Ernie Dace and Robert Armson**

**10: Carrie Brown and Andrew Beet.”**

 

I hear them switching places again, and the man’s voice begins once more. **“No more questions will be permitted. Your hour begins now.”**

  
  


“Ray, do you know anyone here?” I ask my partner. Secretly, I hope that he doesn’t as it will put Phil and I (and our respective partners) at a lower risk.

 

“No, none,” he responds. “Was the Phil mentioned the one that was taken at the same time as you?”

 

“Yes, that’s him,” I confirm.

 

“If you completely trust him, then I’ll agree to teaming up with him and whoever ‘Martin Yale’ is. Remember that pairing up could put our lives at risk though,” Ray tells me, and I let out a sigh of relief. He won’t oppose my decision to find Phil.

 

“I’d trust him with my life,” I state with absolute certainty. “Hell, I’d trust him with the life of anyone in here. He’s just that kind of person; he’d never hurt them.”

 

“Sounds like you care a lot about him,” Ray observes, and when I look over as he speaks, I see him raising his eyebrows in a questioning way. Despite the ridiculous contrast it is to our situation, I can feel my cheeks flushing hotly.

 

“More than anything.”

 

I sound sappier than a romantic movie that I wouldn’t be able to watch without puking, but I’m being entirely truthful. As a child, you look up to your parents as the most important people in your small sheltered world. You grow, and still you love them as much as your heart will allow, the sector of it that’s reserved for familial love. At some point, however, the rest of your emotions are unlocked by someone else, someone who isn’t family. Your heart lets them in bit by bit, until they’ve taken up residence in nearly all of you. You still love your family just as much, but know that that smaller part of you pales in comparison to what you feel for  _ them.  _ For me, that person is Phil. 

 

Speaking to Ray, however, I leave it at ‘more than anything’. 

 

I look up to check the time displayed on the digital clock, but discover that it is now showing ‘56:54’, the seconds ticking down to when we leave this white room and head to whatever the ‘game area’ turns out to be. 

 

“So now we wait, then,” says Ray, and all I can do is nod.

 

“So now we wait.”

 

We say nothing more after that.

  
  



	5. 5

 

5.

 

Tick, tock.

 

Tick, tock.

 

_ Tick. _

 

_ Tock.  _

 

The clock on the wall is digital, so of course it makes no sound- the ticking is all in my mind, fabricated by memories of clocks that actually tick, tick and tock and tick- I feel like I’m going insane. I’ve done nothing but stare at the blinking numbers as they count down to my probable demise, and the death of the only man I have ever loved, the only one I ever will. I can’t let him die, I  _ can’t,  _ but I feel so helpless. How can I be of any use at all in a game like this? I’m physically unfit beyond belief, getting out of breath just going up the stairs, and although I may daydream about killing irritating people on the tube, could I really murder someone? Certainly not to keep only myself alive, at least I’d like to  _ think  _ so. To save Phil, however… I wouldn’t even hesitate. Nobody in the world is as important, to me or in general, as he is.

 

Ten minutes turns to nine minutes and forty-nine seconds as the see-through door opens. I didn’t even notice the three people standing out in the corridor until I hear the clicking of the lock, my head snapping towards the sound, my ears already fine-tuned and my mind drowned in paranoia.

 

“We now have ten minutes until the game begins,” the woman tells us, her figure filling the doorway. I imagine that were it not made of glass, and the wall surrounding it the same, she’d be silhouetted in some way. But it is, and she is not. I want to correct her- when she says ten minutes we have only nine minutes and forty-two, and every single second counts when you have just over twenty four hours left to live. 

 

Unless I find enough objects.

 

Or kill.

 

“Let’s keep walking them to the doors, then,” says a man stood beside her. I see him through the glass wall, scrutinise his features for no reason at all because I have nothing else to do except wait, and waiting grows tiresome, though I hardly want the wait to be over. 

 

The corridor is long and filled with glass fronted rooms. Remembering the list of names, my easy recollection probably due to me writing it down, I know that Phil will be going in door number one with his partner, Martin, and Ray and I all the way down at door number eight. It takes me a moment, due to my concentration on matters not around me, to see that a line of pairs is forming. In front of us is -I assume- the seventh pair. Looking down at the list clenched in my hand, I put names to faces: Helga King and Irma Carmichael. If this line, this procession of strangers walking far too calmly to befit the situation, is in order, then…

 

Behind me, I check and confirm that four people -each pair accompanied by two guards with guns-mare behind us. In front, now leading pair number seven, is the woman whose name I don’t know. I assume that she’ll keep moving forward as the pairs are collected, staying up front. 

 

I count down until only one pair is left to join us all.

 

“Philip Lester and Martin Jones,” the woman informs us all. I didn’t even notice that she was announcing the pairs until now. “Eight minutes until the game begins.”

 

This time, I don’t feel an urge to correct her- I’ve no idea if she’s right, completely off, or somewhere in between the two. What is the point of wondering anyway, especially when Phil is walking out of a room just ahead with an old man with white hair and a haunted expression. In typical Phil fashion, my best friend is comforting him about whatever has upset him. I can tell when he realises that there’s more than just him and Martin Yale in the hallway; his whole upper body twists as he suddenly looks behind him and relief overpowers his features when his gaze falls upon me. Then, however, a guard jabs at his shoulder with a gun and mutters something. His face drops and he turns forward. I catch a glimpse of his face, his lower lip trembling in an attempt to stave off tears. Consciously, I have to stop myself running over to comfort him. I’d be shot if I did- that much is certain. That doesn’t mean that I don’t consider it.

 

Somehow, though, I hold myself back. 

 

Somehow, some way which I don’t quite understand. It’s a demonstration of quite some considerable restraint on my part. He’s shaking like a leaf, the last leaf left on a bare-branched tree in the depths of winter, the harsh wind trying to pluck him from his place. I’m scared that it’ll succeed.

 

“Door one: Martin Yale and Philip Lester,” the woman announces, and it feels far too soon to be walking towards and then past him.

 

“I’ll find you,” I promise as we move by, brushing my hand against his in the most fleeting of touches. 

 

“I know,” he replies, and then he’s behind me and gone as we turn a corner.

 

“Door two: Amelie Woods and Lillian Peters,” she says, and I tune her out until I hear “Door eight: Ray Jones and Daniel Howell.”

 

The guards who’ve been beside Ray and I this whole time wait with us as the final two pairs move on and away from us. There’s a timer above the door by which we now stand. 

 

One minute. I tap my toes inside the trainers I now wear. Ray and I were given clothes and a backpack about half an hour before they took us from the rooms, with instructions to put on the clothes and to not open the backpack unless we wanted a bullet through the skull. I changed underneath the thin covering of the sheet left on my bed, ‘my’ bed because it was the one they tied me to before I woke surrounded by white. 

 

Thirty seconds, and my fingers tug at the strap of the bag on my back, the poor quality of the product meaning that I can already feel it fraying.

 

Twenty seconds become three, and then two. 

 

_ One. _

 

The door buzzes and swings open, and we are pushed inside. 

  
  



	6. 5.5

 

5.5

 

Her name is Daya Moore, and she can’t quite believe that this is happening to her. Sure, her partner seems pretty nice, and at least she can be sure that they’re not going to try killing her, as they would lose hours on their timer. But all of that hardly lessens the gravity of her situation. She’s only sixteen; this shouldn’t be happening to her. Having been revising for at least eight hours a day for over three months, she _really_ doesn’t want to die before she’s done her GCSE exams. She knows that it’s not the most pressing reason to stay alive, but if she’s killed then all of the free time -given up to revision hell- will have been for nothing. It isn’t so much to ask for, getting something to show for the time slaved over revision guides and flashcards, she reasons with herself. No, it isn’t.

 

Now she just has to survive.

 

She vaguely recognises two of the men being forced to participate in this game, but she’s not quite sure how. They certainly know each other, which she determined from the long, meaningful glances which they exchanged when the taller one passed the one with the black hair. She thinks that the brunet is called Daniel, but can’t really remember. Other things are more pressing matters, though at least 60% of her brain is still crammed with knowledge for her upcoming exams.

 

Yes, x may well be plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac all over 2a, but Daya really doesn’t think that reciting the quadratic formula will scare away someone trying to hack her to pieces. Maybe if they were particularly thick then she could confuse them for long enough to make her speedy escape, and by speedy she means as fast as she can for as long as possible before she collapses with a stitch in her side. Also, she needs to worry about carting around sixty-seven year old Tisha Drew, who has apparently only just recovered from her recent hip replacement.

 

Daya also has something else to worry about- Queenie. The other girl was taken at the same time, and judging just by her personality in general, she’s a definite threat to Daya’s wellbeing. They have known each other since primary school, and have wished that they didn’t since around the same time. Daya traces the origins of a long history of hatred between them to the time she punched Queenie in the face for trying to coerce her out of her money. She was six at the time, and broke her thumb by tucking it into her closed fist- at least she never made that mistake again, learnt it early.

 

Queenie’s position of power was only relative to the amount of sycophantic suck-ups that she could amass to gather around her like flies around a corpse, but she managed to accumulate many. Daya’s simile made her shudder and resolve to stop comparing things to dead bodies, and instead focus more on her immediate surroundings.She’d just been pushed into the ‘game area’, along with Tisha. She’d noted earlier that, due to an unfortunate correlation of surnames, Queenie won’t be that far away from her now. She pulls out her torch from the small bag on her back, for the area around is dark as it must be outside by now, though her perception of whether it’s night or day has been warped somewhat by the whole being kidnapped and spirited underground thing.

 

“Are you okay, love?” Tisha asks her. Daya nods, surprised by the concern in her partner’s voice. When they were sitting in the white room together, Tisha had told her quite openly that she wouldn’t be averse to killing people to survive. “I won’t go searching for people, Daya, you must understand,” she’d said. “But if someone tries to kill me, then I will not go down without a fight. And if we’re running out of time then I just might have to buy us more in the only available way if none of those ‘objects’ is close to hand.” She understood Tisha’s reasoning, and why she would choose to kill other competitors rather than die. Personally, Daya doesn’t think that she could have the strength to do it. Although, that may change when her timer grows closer to zero.

 

“I’m fine thanks, Tish,” Daya reassures her partner, using the nickname that Tisha had told her to. It’s surprising to her that Tish’s full name is just ‘Tisha’. She has no clue what Tisha could possibly be short for, though, so isn’t wary of believing the older woman. “As fine as I can be when I might die any second.”

 

“Don’t talk like that!” Tisha exclaims harshly. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

 

“Alright then, Tish. Let’s get moving.”

 

They move right, as Daya rather believes that Queenie could be on their left.

  


\-----------

 

“Philip,” Martin whispers to the man stood beside him. “We should probably start looking for these objects, shouldn’t we?”

 

“Not yet,” Phil responds, his voice somehow even quieter.

 

“I don’t think that we’re going to find Daniel this soon, Philip,” Martin wheedles, trying to persuade Phil to not drag him on a wild search for someone that Martin doesn’t know, and therefore doesn’t trust. Secretly, he’d rather hoping that ‘Dan’, as Philip calls him, will die before the two of them reach him. Martin really  doesn’t want to be killed, and ‘Daniel Howell and Ray Yale’ may well decrease his chance of survival.

 

“We will,” Phil states earnestly. Martin can’t really stop him, _certainly_ won’t be leaving his naive partner alone to go after Daniel, and realises that those last two things add up to a conclusion he really doesn’t want to come to.

 

“Fine,” Martin relents, and Phil beams, unseen by Martin in the darkness just as the elder man’s murderous glares are equally concealed.

 

“Great!” Phil replies, and sets off at once to try and find a part of the concrete maze that leads right.

  


\----------

 

“Queenie, w-what are you doing?” a mild mannered man from Sussex stammers as his youthful partner pushes him against a wall. William has no idea what on earth she’s doing, but is rather worried when something sharps presses against his throat. He lets out a nervous laugh. “You c-can’t k-kill me!” he points out, not sounding quite so clever as he’d like to. “You need me alive!”

 

“Think again,” Queenie Jordan replies, for she believes that she’s better off with him dead by her hand. That way, she won’t worry about him losing her time at a point when it would kill her, and nobody will be able to benefit from killing him. William’s response is drowned with a gurgle of his own blood as he falls to the ground, one of his bones snapping under his dead weight.

 

She leans down and wipes the knife on her dead partner’s jacket, and glances down at her timer: 18 hours, 53 minutes and 28 seconds.

 

Time to tick off her list.

 

\-------------

r nothing. It isn’t so much to ask for, getting something to show for the time slaved over revision guides and flashcards, she reasons with herself. No, it isn’t.

 

Now she just has to survive.

 

She vaguely recognises two of the men being forced to participate in this game, but she’s not quite sure how. They certainly know each other, which she determined from the long, meaningful glances which they exchanged when the taller one passed the one with the black hair. She thinks that the brunet is called Daniel, but can’t really remember. Other things are more pressing matters, though at least 60% of her brain is still crammed with knowledge for her upcoming exams.

 

Yes, x may well be plus or minus the square root of b squared minus 4ac all over 2a, but Daya really doesn’t think that reciting the quadratic formula will scare away someone trying to hack her to pieces. Maybe if they were particularly thick then she could confuse them for long enough to make her speedy escape, and by speedy she means as fast as she can for as long as possible before she collapses with a stitch in her side. Also, she needs to worry about carting around sixty-seven year old Tisha Drew, who has apparently only just recovered from her recent hip replacement.

 

Daya also has something else to worry about- Queenie. The other girl was taken at the same time, and judging just by her personality in general, she’s a definite threat to Daya’s wellbeing. They have known each other since primary school, and have wished that they didn’t since around the same time. Daya traces the origins of a long history of hatred between them to the time she punched Queenie in the face for trying to coerce her out of her money. She was six at the time, and broke her thumb by tucking it into her closed fist- at least she never made that mistake again, learnt it early.

 

Queenie’s position of power was only relative to the amount of sycophantic suck-ups that she could amass to gather around her like flies around a corpse, but she managed to accumulate many. Daya’s simile made her shudder and resolve to stop comparing things to dead bodies, and instead focus more on her immediate surroundings.She’d just been pushed into the ‘game area’, along with Tisha. She’d noted earlier that, due to an unfortunate correlation of surnames, Queenie won’t be that far away from her now. She pulls out her torch from the small bag on her back, for the area around is dark as it must be outside by now, though her perception of whether it’s night or day has been warped somewhat by the whole being kidnapped and spirited underground thing.

 

“Are you okay, love?” Tisha asks her. Daya nods, surprised by the concern in her partner’s voice. When they were sitting in the white room together, Tisha had told her quite openly that she wouldn’t be averse to killing people to survive. “I won’t go searching for people, Daya, you must understand,” she’d said. “But if someone tries to kill me, then I will not go down without a fight. And if we’re running out of time then I just might have to buy us more in the only available way if none of those ‘objects’ is close to hand.” She understood Tisha’s reasoning, and why she would choose to kill other competitors rather than die. Personally, Daya doesn’t think that she could have the strength to do it. Although, that may change when her timer grows closer to zero.

 

“I’m fine thanks, Tish,” Daya reassures her partner, using the nickname that Tisha had told her to. It’s surprising to her that Tish’s full name is just ‘Tisha’. She has no clue what Tisha could possibly be short for, though, so isn’t wary of believing the older woman. “As fine as I can be when I might die any second.”

 

“Don’t talk like that!” Tisha exclaims harshly. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

 

“Alright then, Tish. Let’s get moving.”

 

They move right, as Daya rather believes that Queenie could be on their left.

 

\-----------

 

“Philip,” Martin whispers to the man stood beside him. “We should probably start looking for these objects, shouldn’t we?”

 

“Not yet,” Phil responds, his voice somehow even quieter.

 

“I don’t think that we’re going to find Daniel this soon, Philip,” Martin wheedles, trying to persuade Phil to not drag him on a wild search for someone that Martin doesn’t know, and therefore doesn’t trust. Secretly, he’d rather hoping that ‘Dan’, as Philip calls him, will die before the two of them reach him. Martin really  doesn’t want to be killed, and ‘Daniel Howell and Ray Yale’ may well decrease his chance of survival.

 

“We will,” Phil states earnestly. Martin can’t really stop him, _certainly_ won’t be leaving his naive partner alone to go after Daniel, and realises that those last two things add up to a conclusion he really doesn’t want to come to.

 

“Fine,” Martin relents, and Phil beams, unseen by Martin in the darkness just as the elder man’s murderous glares are equally concealed.

 

“Great!” Phil replies, and sets off at once to try and find a part of the concrete maze that leads right.

 

\----------

 

“Queenie, w-what are you doing?” a mild mannered man from Sussex stammers as his youthful partner pushes him against a wall. William has no idea what on earth she’s doing, but is rather worried when something sharps presses against his throat. He lets out a nervous laugh. “You c-can’t k-kill me!” he points out, not sounding quite so clever as he’d like to. “You need me alive!”

 

“Think again,” Queenie Jordan replies, for she believes that she’s better off with him dead by her hand. That way, she won’t worry about him losing her time at a point when it would kill her, and nobody will be able to benefit from killing him. William’s response is drowned with a gurgle of his own blood as he falls to the ground, one of his bones snapping under his dead weight.

 

She leans down and wipes the knife on her dead partner’s jacket, and glances down at her timer: 18 hours, 53 minutes and 28 seconds.

 

Time to tick off her list.

 

\-------------

 


	7. 6

6.

 

In a situation such as this, I think that my irrational fear of the dark is perhaps the worst phobia to possess. Although I suppose it isn’t that irrational anymore- there really are monsters out there. It’s mere minutes into the game, but someone may already be dead. In my opinion, it’s even more terrifying that they’re not reading the names of ‘the dead’ out over a speaker system as ‘survival game’ stereotypes would dictate. Phil could have been killed already; he could be killed at any point and I wouldn’t know unless I find his body. Hopefully, I’ll find him  _ alive  _ before that has a chance to happen, but -frustratingly in the most terrifying of ways- all I can do is hope beyond hope that he’ll be okay. At least if I manage to meet up with him then I’ll be able to protect him, or at least try to.

 

“Come on, Dan,” Ray encourages me, as I’ve stopped in the centre of the path. Path- should I call it that? Corridor? We’re in a maze made out of metal which, if I remember correctly, is “equal in size to a reasonably populated village”. And with our pairings on near-opposite ends of the register, I may never find him. “Dan,” Ray repeats my name, touching my shoulder gently but only succeeding in making me jump. “Let’s try and meet up with your friend, and see if we can find any objects along the way. 

 

**“Object number fifteen has been found.”** booms suddenly from above us, speakers that I didn’t even know were there announcing it. It’s annoying, more than anything else, that someone has found something. My competitive streak is shining through even in this fucked up set of events. I have another challenge though, one far more important than any of those objects; I need to find Phil, get to him as quick as possible. Before someone else does.

 

And so we walk.

 

\-------------------

 

Someone is moving in front of me. I stop at once, and hold out the knife from my backpack, my hand shaking. We haven’t been using our torches, mostly to save the battery for when we actually need it, so I fumble to get mine. Any hope that I held about Ray being the person in front of me, him having somehow moved in front of me, is lost when his torch suddenly turns on- behind me. 

 

The beam of light illuminates the area around us, and I blink instinctively as my eyes react to the unexpected change. Directly in front of me stand two people, neither of which are Phil.

 

There’s quite the age gap between them; one looks around eighty whereas the other seems to still be a teenager. The elder of the two, a hobbling old woman with pure white hair and electric green eyes, speaks up before anyone else can. “Please don’t harm us!” she begs, even as her partner protectively moves in front of her. “We’re no threat.”

 

“We would never,” I reply at once, looking back at Ray and seeing him nod in confirmation of my words. “We’re not that kind of people, Ray and I.”

 

“Thank God,” the other guy says, sighing as he lets out a breath he’d clearly been holding in. “I’m Sam, by the way, and this is Perianne.”

 

“Peri, please,” she corrects him, and then there’s an awkward sort of silence in which none of us seem to know what to say next.

 

As the torch is still on, I take the opportunity to observe my surroundings. The hallway is just as metallic as I supposed it must be when guiding myself forwards by trailing my fingers along the walls. Now that the light is on, I can see how much it contrasts with the all-consuming darkness of mere minutes ago. In every corner, as far as the eye can see, there’s a camera. The ‘game-master’, or whatever the fuck I should call him, is watching our every move.

 

“I’m just going to take a moment to talk to Dan in private,” Ray tells Peri and Sam. They nod accordingly, and we walk a few steps away from them. “What do you think?” he asks me.

 

I shrug. “They certainly look like they could use some help; I’m okay grouping with them if you think they’re trustworthy.”

 

“They seem that way,” Ray admits. “We just have to hope that our kindness won’t come back around to bite us in the ass.”

 

“We won’t get anywhere if we don’t try and trust people,” I counter.

 

Together, we walk back to where the other pair stand. 


	8. 6.5

  
  


6.5

 

Daya now has the formula for working out the relative atomic mass of a substance whirling around her head, and isn’t it ironic that she only actually remembers stuff when it’s completely useless to the circumstance? That thought in particular sends her mind off on a spiral of reminiscence regarding the time that a teacher was doing the register and she replied ‘nine’ instead of here when her name was called, because she had been frantically doing her homework for that day’s first lesson.

 

And again,  _ again _ she is distracting herself. By now she quite suspects that her mind is trying to block out the world around her with equations and formulae, but it won’t work. Beside her, Tish is saying something, and she jerks herself out of her self-induced stupor just in time to catch the last few words.

 

“-over there!” Tish exclaims, and luckily Daya knows exactly what she’s talking about because her partner’s arm is extended into a long line which finishes with her index finger, pointing at a small black box attached to the wall. They hurry over to observe it, and Daya sees a piece of paper tacked to its front.

 

“Imagine you are in a dark room. How do you get out? The answer unlocks object number forty-three.” she reads out to Tish, who looks as perplexed as Daya feels, and moves the paper to reveal a padlock with 4 letter options instead of numbers. Then, however, something clicks. She’s always been good at puzzles.

 

“Stop,” Daya says, and Tish freezes instantly.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“No, I’m not telling you to stop, Tish; it’s the answer. To get out of the dark room, you have to stop.”

 

“I’m confused,” Tish responds.

 

“You imagine you’re in a dark room- all it is is your thoughts so you just need to stop imagining you’re there and you no longer will be.”

 

Daya prays to just about every entity she can think of, atheist though she is, that she’s right. Turning the little dials on the padlock, or whatever the hell she’s supposed to call them, she lines them up so that they spell STOP. A tug at the lock with trembling fingers later, and the door on the small black box swings open. Inside, there’s a small dagger that looks as if it has been made for a video game cosplay of some sort, but is heavy and very much realistic when she picks it up. 

 

**“Object number forty-three has been found.”** the distinctive voice booms over the speakers, making Tish jump beside Daya, and Daya to jump at Tish’s movement. It’s a chain of fear, and Daya knows that her fear will escalate to terror before long.

 

The timers on their wrists flash, 22:34:12 changing, becoming 23:34:11, and Daya smiles slightly. Maybe she can survive this.

 

\--------

 

Queenie pulls out the list of objects and ticks off ‘43’. The list is just the numbers, nothing more, and she assumes that the only way she’ll find out what they represent is by finding them. Her knife is still clenched in her hand, and she’s glad for that because someone walks around the corner; a tall woman with frizzy black hair and a short bald man with a rather ridiculous goatee that not even the most handsome of men could make work, and he is far from attractive. 

 

Two against one, and she isn’t quite sure how to make it work until she sees the glint of a knife hanging from the woman’s hip. ‘What an idiot,’ Queenie observes, but begins to cry quite realistically as they notice her, exclaiming “Oh god please help me!” while stumbling towards them with fake tears spilling from her eyes like there’s no tomorrow, which may as well be true. 

 

“What’s wrong honey?” the woman questions at once, running over with a look of concern consuming her facial features. The man looks equally worried.

 

“My, my rib!” Queenie improvises on the spot, clutching at a non-existent pain  in  her side. “Someone killed my partner and really hurt me, but I didn’t see their face,”

 

“Oh no honey, don’t worry, we’ve got you now!” the woman tells her, moving to help Queenie with her ‘injury’. “Here, you put your arm over my shoulder and my partner here will carry your bag.”

 

“T-thank you so much!” Queenie responds, her false tears still falling. The man reaches up to take her backpack for her, leaving his side exposed as his arm lifts. 

 

Suddenly, he’s on the floor, not quite sure how or why. His partner, who would have been helping him otherwise, lies beside him. Queenie, a weapon held in both hands, stands above them. The woman no longer has a knife hanging from her hip, and it doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out where it’s gone, which is good as she doesn’t have enough to think any more after that.

 

Their names were Carrie and Andrew, not that Queenie will ever know, nor care.

 

\-------------

“Do you think we’ll find them soon, Philip?”

“Phil please, Martin. And I hope so, I really do,”

“Shouldn’t we be trying to find the objects by now?”

_ 22:10:18 _

_ 22:10:17 _

“Nothing matters as much as him.” Phil replies, and it's not so much a reply as it is a statement, an absolute that Martin can't seem to argue with because there's so much conviction behind his words. Martin only wishes that he could have somebody who loves him as much as Philip loves this 'Dan', whoever he is. Philip has told him several times now that it isn't love, that they're just friends, but even Martin can tell that his words fall far from the mark.

_ 22:09:02 _

_ 22:09:01 _

They have started to walk once more, in the general direction that Phil supposes his best friend must be, when someone screams. The sound does nothing but startle Martin, but Phil knows the voice better than he knows his own.

Phil runs, and Martin, 67 and with a less than reliable left hip, cannot dream of catching up.

_ 22:08:37 _

_ 22:08:36 _


	9. 7.

 

7.

It happened just as we were turning another corner, Ray, Peri, Sam and I. Someone, perhaps two of them, leapt for us seemingly out of nowhere. It seemed like a blur of wildly flailing torch beams and brief flashes of metal as they tried to harm us grievously. Of course I screamed instinctively; I’m bad enough as it is with jump scares on video games, so I’m unlikely to fare well in the face of danger which actually threatens my life. Right now, we’re still fighting.

I wish that I was even the slightest bit fitter than I am in this moment, as the physical exertion of fighting for my life is proving to be quite disagreeable in conjunction with my untoned body. It’s reached the point where I’m having to refrain from wheezing and clutching at my ribs, as it feels like I’ve been running a marathon, whereas I’m fighting with Sam at my side to protect the very elderly Perianne and my aged partner Ray. At the back of my mind lingers the fear that my instinctive shocked yell may have brought in people from all around, who might decide on a whim to team up with the two people trying to kill us. Two against two -I’m not counting Perianne and Ray- is bad enough, but if the scales are tipped then I fear I’ll fall off. 

A woman, who must be one of the people that we’re fighting though I’ve yet to catch a clear glimpse of either of their faces, lets out a pained yelp. A flicker of light from the torch Ray is holding illuminates a stain darkening the woman’s clothes; Sam must have managed to get her at last. I feel only slightly guilty as I take the opportunity to punch my own opponent in the face with all of the little strength I possess. Unlike Sam, I didn’t try and kill them, as I’m not quite ready yet for the moral consequences which something like that would bring. It’s unbearable to think of how Phil might react, though I’m 100% sure that he’d prefer for me to kill than be killed. 

The man, for I can now confirm their gender, at least in the physical sense of the word, falls to the floor in an unconscious heap. Beside him, the woman pants red liquid, blood flowing from her mouth in a seemingly never-ending flow. 

“For the record,” she gasps, visibly fighting to keep her fluttering eyelids open, “I never wanted to kill anyone- I just wanted to survive. Please don’t hate me for that,”

“Never,” I respond without thought, as I entirely understand.

“Tell Poppy I’m sorry,” she pleads, her words carried on an exhalation rather than truly spoken.

“Who’s Poppy?” Ray asks, but she breathes no more.

“Sorry,” Sam tells the corpse at his feet. “But you tried to kill me first.”

I can’t blame him for that, but I feel distinctly uneasy, far more so when he slits the throat of the defenseless man on the ground. Yet I say nothing, for part of me almost wishes that I had the mental strength to have done that myself. Left there merely knocked out, he would have woken up and tried to kill again, perhaps succeeding. He could have killed me, killed  _ Phil  _ and it would have been my fault, albeit indirectly. So I am grateful, in a twisted sort of way, that Samuel relieved me of the crushing responsibility.

Still jumpy and more than slightly skittish, when someone comes hurtling around the corner I nearly stab them instinctively. Luckily I manage not to, for I’d never be able to forgive myself. Samuel starts forward, but I move in front of the lanky figure before the tall teenager can get even remotely close. Hands rest briefly on my waist before sliding past as long arms wrap around my middle, and I feel a relieved huff of air brush past the side of my face. 

It’s him.

_ Phil.  _

Never before have I felt happier to be in the comfort of his arms. In spite of the terror rushing through me and the two bodies on the floor by our feet, I feel oddly at home. Funny, that.

“I’m so glad you’re alive,” he murmurs, still wrapped around me and resting his head on my shoulder in a gesture that seems stupidly domestic in contrast to our circumstances. 

“Of course I am, you spork,” I respond, a real smile fighting its way to the surface of my expressions and lighting up my face with brief happiness. “I said I’d find you.”

“But-”

“Yes, Phil. I know you found me and not vice versa, but let’s just be glad that we’ve somehow survived thus far,” I cut in before he can state the obvious. Finally, though I don’t really want to,  I wriggle out of his embrace and settle for clinging onto the closest of his arms. 

“If you guys are done with whatever the hell it is you’re doing,” Sam says, offering an arm to Perianne as he walks over to his partner, “Then I suggest that we get moving,”

“Yes, we need to find my partner,” Phil replies. “I left him behind when I heard Dan scream- it was instinctive.”

“Fine,” Sam huffs, as if he really has a choice in the matter. 

I smile softly at the man by my side, and think nothing at all of the fact that his hand slips into mine, our fingers linking like puzzle pieces clicking into place. Because nothing is meant by it, right?

Right?

I chide myself- I have other, far more important and literally  _ life threatening, _ things to worry about, and yet Phil Lester won’t budge from the forefront of my troubled mind.


	10. 7.5

 

7.5

She must have saved multiple orphanages full of children from certain death whilst simultaneously donating vast amounts of money to charity in a former life, Daya decides, because only some seriously good karma could result in finding another object just twenty minutes after the first one. 

_ “Time ticks on, and death grows near, _

_ Your life may end, but do not fear, _

_ For here within lies the power, _

_ To extend your short life for one more ____.” _

Daya reads out, but this time it’s not her that realises the four letter word needed for the padlock. 

“Hour,” Tish mutters under her breath, twisting the little dials into place to spell out that same word. As nervously anticipated, the padlock clicks, allowing her to pull and remove it. 

**“Object number forty-nine has been found.”** a voice calls, but neither are altogether surprised in the slightest.

Within, though she has to enlist Daya’s help with the torch to see it, Tish sees a tablet of some sort- like an iPad but unbranded. The unlock button is still in the same place, however, and she presses it, curious. There’s no passcode, which makes a nice change, so the pair are presented with a brightly lit screen displaying a numbered list of names. 

**“Object number nineteen has been found”**

_ 1: Martin Yale & Phillip Lester  _

_ 2: Amelie Woods & Lillian Peters _

_ 3: Perianne Underwood & Samuel Jordan 2 _

_ 4. _

_ 5: Daya Moore & Tisha Drew _

_ 6: Queenie Jordan 3 _

_ 7: Helga King & Irma Carmichael _

_ 8: Ray Jones & Daniel Howell _

_ 9: Ernie Dace and Robert Armson _

_ 10: _

 

**“Object number twelve has been found.”**

 

Daya scans the list quickly, trying to hazard a guess as to what it all means, and is still doing so when Ernie Dace disappears, followed by Helga King. Robert Armson is briefly solo next to ‘9:’, but with a ‘1’ next to his name, then his name vanishes as well. Irma Carmichael, partner of the recently disappeared ‘Helga King’, now has ‘2’ next to her name.

 

“So?” Tish prompts her partner, unable to see the screen due to the way Daya is holding the tablet, and quite curious. “What do you think it is.”

 

“What I think, Tish,” Daya replies, her face transformed by a rare smile, perhaps the first Tisha has seen, “is that we have just found possibly the most useful object in this game. From the looks of it, we can now tell who is alive, who is dead, and who has killed people.”

 

“Are you being serious?” Tish asks her, taking the tablet and looking for herself.

 

“Dead serious.” Daya replies, though she realises several seconds too late that her response sounds a lot like poor humour.

 

\---------

 

Irma looks down at the carnage caused in pursuit of the two objects, a pistol and what looks like a hunting knife. All that for a gun and a knife; three dead for virtually nothing. She had killed one man when they tried to kill her partner Helga, a seventy-four year old who appeared to have dementia. Appeared being the key word, as Helga is now dead. The other man managed to get to Helga when she was killing his partner, and though she had still killed him too, it was too late for the elderly woman. Irma, left with three bodies and blood on her hands in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the phrase, isn’t quite sure where to go from here. 

 

She’s thirty-one, which most people wouldn’t expect due to her somewhat dated name, and she feels that she’s probably playing up the idea that she’s posh by having a perm, but could not care less. Irma is probably the least predictably good at this ‘survival game’, for want of better words. Even she was expecting to die five minutes in, with nothing to live for but a sub-par English degree which is frankly getting her nowhere in life and her cat Manny. It seems as if the threat placed upon her life has given her motivation, however. It’s a fight or flight situation in which flight is an excluded option, and Irma has more than risen to the challenge. She doesn’t see why she should have to die, and though only going into the competition -if she should call it that- deciding to hunt down the objects, if her life is put in jeopardy then she will certainly not go down without a fuss. 

 

The timer on her wrist went down five hours when Helga was killed, but it went back up another sixteen when she had to kill the first man, and eleven more after that when she killed the other. She’s left with what feels like an abundance of time: thirty-eight hours. That’s more than she had to begin with, and she’s slightly revolted by the slight relief that she feels upon realising that she no longer has to worry about Helga dying when their clocks are under five hours, thereby damning them both. Though she’s disgusted by it, being relieved at the death of someone that was starting to be a friend of sorts to her, the feeling doesn’t go away. Now, more than she ever felt upon learning the details of this twisted ‘game’, Irma wonders if she could actually live to see the outside world once more. 

 

It’s food for thought, at the very least.

 

\-----------------

 

In the same situation, down a partner having killed two other people, Queenie is feeling rather satisfied with herself. Her quick thinking not only possibly saved her life, it also added a total of nineteen hours to her timer, as she killed Carrie and Andrew an hour before Irma killed Ernie and Robert. Neither of them knew that nor the names of their ‘victims’, so to speak. The difference between them is that Queenie, now approaching a black box set into the wall just above the floor, feels no remorse whatsoever. She’s even now thinking of other ways to outsmart others she may come upon while looking for objects, excited by the prospect of killing with no consequences. By that, she means that if she manages to get out of this place, she has the plausible explanation of ‘self-defense’ if her killings ever come up in court. She’s a master in feigning innocence, so is confident that the jury would sway in her favour. 

 

She reaches the box. It’s the first that she’s found thus far, though she’s not too worried as she’s probably just passed them by in the relative darkness if they’re as well concealed as this one. Atop the box is a folded piece of paper, with the number ‘37’ scrawled upon it. When she opens the paper up, there’s a poem of some sort- no, a riddle.

_ In this place, it’s hard to see, _

_ how you’ll keep your humanity. _

_ But is killing such a grievous crime, _

_ when it gains you some precious ____? _

 

_ Deadly poison at arrow’s tip, _

_ Within lies the power to kill. _

  
  


“Time,” Queenie murmurs, completing the sentence and the riddle as a whole. Noticing the lettered padlock, she twists said letters into place and pulls the padlock free. 

 

**“Object number thirty-seven has been found”** calls the voice, and Queenie finally understands how they know, though there are probably cameras all around this place- the game itself must be some form of entertainment for the master of it all, the owner of the disembodied voice.

 

Inside the black safe, something glimmers. It’s an object which she recognises from video games her older brother Samson used to play- a dart gun, if she’s remembering correctly, the type that’s handheld. Perfect; she doesn’t even have to get close to them anymore.

 

Fairly close to her, Queenie hears muffled footsteps and poorly concealed voices. Silently, she moves forward.


	11. 8.

 

8.

 

I’m still holding his hand, and it feels ridiculous that such a fact is the one that matters most to me; I’m literally fighting for a chance to live, yet all I can think about is the way the heat of his palm feels against my chilly skin. Our relationship has always been a series of contrasts like this; hot and cold, happy and sad, calm and angry when I’m in a spiral of despair and he’s comforting me. I suppose that the one good thing that has emerged from this chaotic hell is my will to live, if only so that I can keep Phil doing the same. My past existential crises seem to have all stemmed from a lack of logical reason for my place among the living. Now I know- it’s to make sure that Phil survives.

 

Maybe once we’re out of here I’ll pluck up the courage to confess my feelings to him. 

 

From what it seems, however, he’ll be the only one getting out of here, and that’s the optimistic outcome.  It’s not that I want to die, more that I know that I’d give my life for him in half a heartbeat and it’s very likely that we’ll be attacked again. 

 

Somewhere, though luckily far from us, somebody screams. It’s a long, drawn out sound, agonisingly so, until it’s cut off. Shouting ensues, loud enough that I’m able to determine that the louder of the voices is male, at least biologically so. My long usage of tumblr has educated me enough that I know that not all people with deep voices are male, and they’re not necessarily female either. Back to the now, and I’m having my hand crushed in a vice-like grip by Phil, his stubby bitten nails digging into the back of it. I make no effort to pull away, though; only a considerable amount of self-restraint on my part is preventing me from doing the exact same thing. 

 

“I wonder who that is,” Phil says softly, his voice weak and his body trembling. 

 

Samuel replies before I have a chance to, bluntly correcting him with a short “Was.” 

 

Phil lets out a small sob at that, and I pull him quickly into a hug, glaring at Samuel over one shaking shoulder. “Can we  _ please _ try and stay positive?” I implore, hypocritical as it makes me to ask. 

 

“There’s no use,” Phil sighs, his breath surprising me as it ghosts over my neck. I shiver.

 

“Not you,” I refute, holding him tighter. “I won’t let you lose hope, Phil. Your optimism is the only thing keeping me going.”

 

“Sorry,” he replies, and I notice that it’s not an agreement, that he’s not saying that he’ll at least try to keep his chin up even for my sake. “The world just doesn’t seem so bright when you’re surrounded by death and darkness.”

 

When I lift my head up and meet his gaze, dimly lit by the torch Ray still holds, I see emptiness. His hope is gone, and with it goes any I had for my own survival. 

  
  
  



	12. 8.5

8.5

 

Daya can hear screaming, and feels bad that her only reaction is to be glad that it isn’t her dying by the hands of some desperate player. The godawful sound stops after a relatively short amount of time, and that’s the only thought she spares on the matter, asides from checking the device she still holds. Unlocking it, she looks to see who else has been killed. 

 

Amelie Woods and Lillian Peters have disappeared from the list, and the death toll next to Queenie’s name has increased to five. Daya shivers, now. Queenie seems to be making her way through the other ‘competitors’, killing everyone she comes across. From the looks of it, she even killed her own partner. Yet it isn’t even the death that scares Daya anymore; with so few people left in the game, will it even be possible for all of the objects to be found before her time runs out? She may not have to worry about it, however, as Queenie could be heading right towards her and Tish. All Daya can do is hope for the best, as her inherent fear of Queenie coupled with her lack of self-defense skills all boils down to the conclusion that she would never survive such an encounter. 

 

\-----

 

Queenie is standing in a pool of blood. Not her own, of course- her soles are dampened by the lives of of Amelie and Lillian. Or, as she knows them, ‘Woman 1’ and ‘Woman 2’. She can’t be expected to know the names of any of her opponents, never having had the most sharp memory at the best of times. Nevertheless, she feels something as she looks down at them. Her torch is switched on, something that she hasn’t done very much thus far, preferring the safety that darkness has provided. With one step away from them in the narrow hallway, her back is pressed up against the opposite wall. Slowly, she lets herself slide down it, her legs folding underneath her as she reaches the ground. One hand stretches out to a pool of blood -there are many- and she swirls the congealing liquid around with one finger, laughing dryly.

 

What is she doing; at what point in her relatively short life did she lose her humanity? It was certainly before she was ever snatched from outside her school as she waited for a ride home that would probably have never turned up. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, but it isn’t to the two dead bodies in front of her. She’s not sure who her words are addressed to, really. All she knows is that she is sorry.

  
  



	13. 9.

9.

 

Another two hours have passed, and our timers tick closer to inevitable demise. The group of us, Peri, Martin, Ray, Samuel, Phil and I, walk on, though we don’t know where we’re going in the slightest. I assume that some of the objects are in groups, as the intercom called out “Objects one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten have now been found. Someone has a lot of time on their hands…” not long ago, perhaps twenty minutes. The voice was right in that that person truly hit a jackpot. Ten hours on their timer, and that of their partner. 

 

We turn a corner and see that we, too, have hit such a jackpot. The torch beams light up a row of numbers on the wall. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25. The six of us stand in a sort of stunned silence before Phil says, hesitant, “One each?”

 

Beneath each number is a red button. I assume that, to add the hour to our timers, we need only press it. 

 

“Okay,” Samuel agrees. “Good with the rest of you?” He confirms, and when we’ve all seen each other nod in the light of his torch, we move forward. Our steps are slow, all of us worried it’s too good to be true.

 

I press 25, and Phil presses 24 next to me. A chorus of beeps fills the otherwise silent air, and when I look down I see another hour added to my timer. I’m now at 16:33:23. Phil is the same. 

 

The numbers flash, and the wall I’d assumed they were on swings forward for each. Doors, of course. How could I forget that they are actual objects that we need to collect. Their interiors are lit up brightly, the light making us all reel back in shock. Spots dance in front of my eyes as I squint to see what’s inside. 

 

Ten bottles of water. Practically manna from heaven in a situation where we’re walking for hours on end without hydration. “We should close these as soon as we’ve taken the objects out,” I comment. “Light this strong will be easy to find.”

 

I pull out the bottles one by one and place them in the bag I’ve been carrying all this time, a backpack that has been empty until now asides from the paper with instructions from the beginning of this hell. All bottles excavated, I push the door shut with a soft click, cutting off the shining white light in front of me. Around me, the others do the same. 

 

“What do you all have?” Peri asks us. She’s barely spoken at all in the last two hours, and the scratchy timbre of her speech reflects that. 

 

“A loaf of bread and ten energy bars,” Samuel responds first. 

 

“A, a knife,” Phil admits reluctantly, his voice layered with disgust. 

 

“Water,” I tell them. “Ten bottles,”

 

“I have three packets of beef jerky,” Ray says. He sounds confused as to why that is one of the options, but I suppose the protein will do him good.  _ Us _ good if he intends to share it. 

 

“I have about three pieces of paper,” Martin offers up. “They have writing on, but I haven’t looked yet. Must be something relevant to warrant it being one of the objects.”

  
“Here, I’ll shine the torch on it as we carry on walking and you can read it out,” Samuel suggests. It’s agreed, and we begin to walk onwards once more. 


End file.
